Tag: now

Tuesday Morning Wake-Up Call

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You know what, explain this to me. We live with miracles at our fingertips. We fly to the stars. We split atoms. We’ve got robots taking out the trash. Why, are we all still waiting, to live our dreams? Well, there’s a technical term for that in my business, that’s called a shit deal. Our best days are piling up in the rear view, and that hope, it keeps us going, it’s wearing down to the bone. Some of us are losing people we love. And just like that, any day now, that turns into too late. Gone forever. Because every day we’re not living for now, right now, we’re waiting around dying, one empty promise at a time. I’m not waiting around anymore God damn it. Neither should you. The time is NOW. And regret is a killer worse than death.

— Jack Billings (Billy Crudup), Hello Tomorrow! (S1:E1 – Your Brighter Tomorrow, Today. AppleTV+ Original)

Lightly Child, Lightly

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This day of mine
was lost
like all the other days,
half of it thinking of yesterday,
half of it thinking of tomorrow.

— Abbas Kiarostami, A Wolf Lying in Wait: Selected Poems, (tr. by Karim Emami & Michael Beard)

Notes:

  • Portrait of Abbas Kiarostami in Cinematheque
  • Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

T.G.I.F. Now. And Now. And Now.

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Stony silence as we cross the bridge into Manhattan [Cove Island Park] and the streets [paths] begin slipping past. Every moment of your life brings you to the moment you’re experiencing now. And now. And now. I’ve never have been on the streets [paths] this early [many times], predawn, and the driver [DK] agrees that it’s eerie and perfect.

— Jo Ann Beard, Festival Days (Little, Brown & Company, March 16, 2021) (DK-EDITED)

Photos: DK @ Daybreak. 5:04 & 5:15 am, August 5, 2022. 76° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. Other photos from this morning here (landscape) and here (swans).

 

 

Sunday Morning

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But there’s not much in the Gospel about the afterlife—John is the only one who talks about it. And doesn’t that seem strange? If the afterlife is so important? When the rich young man asks Jesus how he might have eternal life, Jesus doesn’t give him a straight answer… But I’ve read those verses a hundred times. The rich young man asks about eternity, and Jesus tells him to give away his money. He says what to do in the present—as if the present is where you find eternity—and I think that’s right. Eternity is a mystery to us, just like God is a mystery. It doesn’t have to mean rejoicing in heaven or burning in hell. It could be a timeless state of grace or bottomless despair. I think there’s eternity in every second we’re alive.

— Jonathan Franzen, Crossroads: A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, October 5, 2021)

Walking. With Toko-pa.

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283 days. Consecutive. Cove Island Park morning walk.

14° F, feels like 5° F temp. What fresh hell is this? (Dorothy Parker)

I’m near the end of my loop.  Boots swish through the crusty snow. I’m making my way to Cove Island Point.

And there it was.

It pierced through my tuk…

and through the hoodie pulled over my tuk…

and somehow she pierced through the noise cancelling earbuds that were pumping Taylor Swift’s Evermore… And I was catching my breath / Barefoot in the wildest winter.

I snap a picture, that one above. And pause to watch.

The rustling of this single, dry leaf, clinging to the branch by its ever-so-thin stem, and shivering. How delicate. How fragile. How barefoot in the wildest winter.

The north wind gusts, she shudders, and I shudder along with her.

Toko-pa Turner: What is wild in us are the ways in which we meet something freshly and not by habit. Wild is to be full-body alive in response to the conversation life is having with us; the caress of the wind which cools your skin after the sun has penetrated it with warmth. The shadow cast by a soaring bird above. The unmediated glance, surprised by beauty.

The unmediated glance surprised by beauty.

And for that moment…full-body alive.

Notes: